Job description - compile management accounts

louby

Hi
I wonder if anyone can help me, I have an interview for an accounts assistant job coming up in a few days and on the job description it says "compile management accounts" (as well as sales & purchase ledger, bank rec and payroll duties). My question is what do they actually mean by management accounts? Is it prepay/accruals/depreciation or am I tototally off the mark?
Any advice would be gratefully received.
Louby

Btw currently studying level 3 passed ethics ap1 and spreadsheets. Next Exam ap2 in a few weeks

clegganator

Sounds about right. Perhaps a cashflow forecast, which is pretty straight forward, and a balance sheet which again isn't too complicated.

totleyblade

I would think in this situation, (I am assuming that the position is with a company rather than with a firm of accountants), the management accounts they refer to will be more related to profit and loss, bank balances, income, expenditure, aged debtor and creditor lists etc rather than technicalities like accruals and depreciation.
In essence I think it will be likely that the management would be looking for you to provide reports in order to assist them in controlling the business on a day to day basis. The format may be specific to fit the requirements of the managemet and I always ask how they would like the management accounts presented.
If they are using a computerised accounts package, and everything is up to date, the provision of management accounts should be fairly routine once you find your way around their systems and ascertain how the management like them set out.
Good luck with the interview.

PGM

totleyblade wrote: »

the management accounts they refer to will be more related to profit and loss, bank balances, income, expenditure, aged debtor and creditor lists etc rather than technicalities like accruals and depreciation.

Mgt accounts should be prepared under the similar rules to your financial accounts, there's no rules to govern how you do your managment accounts so you do them in the way thats most helpful, but depreciation is a real cost, and accruals and prepayments keep things in the right periods so it makes sense to put them in.

In Mgt accounts I'd expect to see P&L's by division, section, dept, manager, activity or project or whatever makes sense to anaylise the business. Its whatever information management needs to assess how the business is doing and in enough detail to see how all the activities of the business are effecting the bottom line.

I put cash flow as a seperate section, that tends to be ignored whilst bank balances are good.

louby

thanks for the info everyone, i feel a bit more confident about the interview now. I assume employers show you how to prepare the reports to their specifications? I don't think i will get the job but fingers crossed.

stevef

managers will want to not only see performance, but will want to compare against the budgeted position at a particular point in the financial year, so they will need to be in the same format as the budgeted accounts.